War Against Wind

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Industrial Wind Turbines Kill Birds and Bats

Don't be Fooled.

Industrial Wind Turbines Kill Birds and Bats. If you follow the links on this site and go to theirs to follow their links you will go to sites all over the world that show this problem for what it is. Birds and bats do not avoid wind turbines. They are unable to calculate and thus avoid wind turbine blades that are spinning at over 200 miles per hour at the tips. No one could!

Millions of protected bird and bat species are being literally wiped out, with nothing in sight but an increase as more and more industrial wind power plants are erected over our lands and seas.

These important and beautiful animals have no voice of their own. They need ours.

Yes, pollution is a problem for birds and bats, as it is for us. But it is outrageous to be killing the living ones for a future which is, yet, unknown. We will not be able to get them back once they are gone. It would be like sacrificing our living children to an experiment that might help future children. I don't know about you but my children's lives are precious to me and I refuse to sacrifice their healthy lives in the name of a scientific experiment.

We must find a way to coexist. And we can do it without sacrificing the living for those yet to live.

The most direct and simple way is for us to change our lifestyle now (in terms of conserving our Natural Resources) while seeking solutions that will do no further harm to the environment we all share.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

War Against Wind

In case we haven't noticed, there is a civil war going on over industrial wind power. While it might appear to be a local issue, it is not. It is a worldwide issue. It is a highly political issue. And it is a personal issue to each and every one of us who cares about our planet and the other beings who share it with us.

As a wildlife advocate and the Founder and President of Wildcare Inc./Hudson Valley Raptor Center (est. 1982) I have intimately witnessed the horrendous effects and suffering of man's impact on wildlife and the environment.

Injured eagles, hawks, owls and other raptors have come to me unjustifiably injured and dying from gunshot wounds, pesticides and collisions with our man made buildings, vehicles and power lines. They have been entangled in barbed wire, smothered in soot and oil, trapped in leg-hold traps, attacked by our domestic pets and injured and/or orphaned when their nest trees have been cut down or destroyed by tractors. Seventy to ninety percent of birds of prey die in their first year. So the ones that manage to beat the odds are incredibly strong and fit to survive to old age. But even so, 99% of the injuries and deaths I have seen were either a direct or indirect result of their innocent encounters with man.

Working in a wildlife emergency ward for over twenty-five years, attempting to save these beautiful lives and release them back to the wild from whence they came has been an enormous struggle, frustration and heartbreak.

Just as in the human community, it is often the emergency room doctors who are the first to see the causes of human mortality, abuse and injury, the wildlife emergency 'doctors' see the same early warning signs in their patients and attempt to sound the alarm.

Industrial Wind power plants kill birds. And they are decimating endangered populations of eagles, bats and birds.

"Wind farm 'hits eagle numbers' Wind farm turbine blades are killing a key population of Europe's largest bird of prey, UK wildlife campaigners warn. The RSPB says nine white-tailed eagles have been killed on the Smola islands off the Norwegian coast in 10 months, including all of last year's chicks.Chick numbers at the species' former stronghold have plummeted since the wind farm was built, with breeding pairs at the site down from 19 to one.

Scientists fear wind farms planned elsewhere could also harm birds.

And there are fears Britain's small population of the birds could be adversely affected.

Fewer chicks

The number of chicks born each year at the site has fallen from at least 10 to three last year, with births outside the borders of the site falling too.The impact of wind farms has long been a concern or ornithologists Only one chick is expected to fledge from the site this year.

Smola, a set of islands 10km (six miles) off the north-west coast of Norway, was designated an Important Bird Area by Birdlife International in 1989 because it had one of the highest densities of white-tailed eagles in the world.Scientists now fear wind farms planned for the rest of Norway could have a similar impact on the birds.

RSPB conservation director Mark Avery told BBC News more care needed to be taken when choosing a site for wind farms. He said: "The problem is if wind farms are put in stupid places where there are lots of vulnerable birds and lots of vulnerable rare birds."

There are those who say that it is worth the sacrifice of eagles to curb our dependency on foreign oil, fossil fuels and to reduce CO2 emissions in the environment. There are those who say birds suffer greater mortality at the claws of cats than they do the blades of wind turbines. And there are those who say the wildlife sacrifice now will help the wildlife later.

But there are also those who say we do not need to destroy our precious wildlife, habitats and breath-taking mountains, plains and shores in order to save them. I am one of them

The lead photo, courteousy of Andy Chapman of Australia, is of a fatally injured Wedge-tailed Eagle (click on photo for larger image and/or go to the Industrial Wind Action Group for this full description reprinted below):

"This Wedge-tailed Eagle was found by a group on a visit to the 23 turbine Starfish Hill wind farm in September 2003. It was taken to a Vet who discovered it had so many broken bones and internal injuries that it had to be put down. Two weeks later a second Wedge-tailed Eagle was killed at the same wind farm. This one was found with its head cut off. A third Wedge-tailed Eagle has since been killed. A Wedge-tailed Eagle was killed at Woolnorth in Tasmania and another at Codrington in the western district. Numerous other birds have been killed at these wind farms. The following link is to a related Eagle Hawk Action Group press release http://www.windwatch.org/news/1823"

Please join us in stopping the killing.

There are so many more effective ways to reduce our dependency on foreign oil, fossil fuels and to reduce CO2 emissions in our environment. All we need to do is to care and to have the political will to let our voices be raised, heard and heeded.